Slay the Spire - Catch all

Free wrote:

After hundreds (thousands?) of runs, I can firmly say that the 2nd spire is the hardest part of the game. The game ramps up the difficulty and you (generally) don't have a fully-realized deck to deal with it. This is multiplied by a billion in higher ascension.

It's hard to give generalized advice because a lot of it depends on your deck and the boss you face. The Champion is very different from The Collector.

Assuming you're playing Ironclad (and not The Silent), then you should probably try and build a defensive deck. Look for Barricade, Body Slams, and Shrug it Offs. Upgrade them in that order. 1 Barricade, 1 or 2 Body Slams is fine. You can have as many Shrugs as you want. I've ended runs with 10!

Yep, been playing the Ironclad. Good to know that the 2nd spire difficulty isn't just me.

I had Barricade in one run and that certainly helped. It's only been the past few runs that I realized I could skip taking a new card after each victory and keep my deck small and focused. I imagine a smaller, defensively focused deck with lots of 0 energy cards could be pretty effective.

EDIT: Needless to say, I beat The City boss on my next run after posting this. Loaded up on upgraded Shrug It Offs and focused on Block. Thanks to Free for the tips and karma.

Bought this game a few days ago and already have 12 hours sunk into it. I love it!

Finally managed to beat the final boss with the Silent late last night. Came real close to dying (1hp) vs the awakened but managed to block my way to victory (and had a relic that gave me +3 hp for every power played).

My strategy for the Silent can be defined as blocky blocky poison poison. It's also not surprising that my first victory came with my first round where I opted not to take a card after every turn but only ones that aligned with my strategy. I still need to figure out how to best play ironclad but I think I've learned a lot since my last IC run. Haven't unlocked the new character yet but should soon.

For an Alpha, this is a very complete game. Has anyone seen a roadmap for StS? Aside from new characters with unique card sets and additional cards/relics for existing players, what else are they going to add?

For roadmap, I found the following post from steam back in January:

[Roadmap] What We're Working On!
Updated 1/26/2018

Hey, this is a roadmap! This is our focus during Early Access. We expect/hope to full release around Summer 2018. Our priorities shift based on player feedback and demand so if things are out of order, we apologize.

CONTENT
The Third Character.
Enemies: At least three more combat encounters for level 3.
Game Modes: Daily Challenges & Infinity Mode (Unofficial Name)
Cards: At least 250 cards total (currently 187)
Relics: At least 135 relics total (currently 115)
Events: At least 50 events total (currently 42)
Potions: There'll be more to chug, quaff, and chuck.
The True Ending + Secrets!

SYSTEMS & FEATURES
Leaderboards: View your best scores and compare them against your friends and all other players.
Improved Save & Continue: Saving will occur more frequently to be less confusing.
(Done) Steam Cloud: Steam Cloud isn't working as expected so we need to fix that as well.
Input Configuration + Controller Support: Rebinding of hotkeys for you power users and we're seriously looking into controller support- though it has been a huge challenge.
Run History: View your past runs!
Localization: Translations! As many languages as our community helps us translate :).
Steam Trading Cards: This will be added last- as it doesn't affect the core gameplay.

PORTS
We will be looking into porting AFTER we get out of Early Access.

I picked it up tother day too. Nearly 3 hours and two runs later, I need to step away otherwise another couple hours will disappear.

First run yesterday with Ironclad got about two thirds through the second act.

Today I am kicking myself after my first run with the Silent on the daily challenge. Got all the way to the big boss at the end of Act 3. I mucked it up, not sure exactly how but me not knowing how the X cards work meant I was stuffed and after couple hours play, fail. Crushed.

Final challenge score 595.
8762 on the board.

Bit of reading up I think and back to it soon as able this week!

Plus I kept forgetting about using potions throughout which didn't help!

B Dog wrote:

(...)
It's only been the past few runs that I realized I could skip taking a new card after each victory and keep my deck small and focused.(...)

...goddamnit. My Steam says I have played 23 hours, I had no idea you didn't HAVE to take one of the cards you were offered.

Yep and you also can skip relic rewards too. For example, if you have the relic that gives +1 strength for every curse in your deck, and then you're offered the relic that negates the next two curses you're given you can skip it.

Late lunch, first regular run with the Silent, have managed to get to finish Act 2 but times up, not going to be able to get back to Act 3 until late this evening, possible tomorrow. Tough wait.

Edit. Back to it and lost on floor 50 to the doughnuty and pyramidy boss duo. Damn it.

If you opt into the beta via the properties tab, you can try out the 3rd class. But you have to unlock it first with a 1st boss run. This game is so great.

After I don't know how many attempts, I finally beat the game at level 5 Ascension with the Ironclad! Not sure how people get up to level 15. I had Barricade, Demon Form, Corruption, two Apotheosis (to increase the chance of upgrading my deck earlier) and a ton of relics synergizing with my deck and it still wasn't a sure thing that I was going to beat the final boss.

18 hours in and I just finished using the silent (perfect zero damage last boss), can happily put this down until it comes out of beta etc:.

Ironclad seems a little more fragile and towards the end I was removing cards rather than adding as a strategy. Still need to figure him out.

Cheers,

Sojourn

Sojourn wrote:

18 hours in and I just finished using the silent (perfect zero damage last boss), can happily put this down until it comes out of beta etc:.

Ironclad seems a little more fragile and towards the end I was removing cards rather than adding as a strategy. Still need to figure him out.

Cheers,

Sojourn

I think the Silent has an obvious approach of defense and poison that helped me beat it quicker. Ironclad took me longer but the combination of barricade, entrench, and body slam can doom opponents very quickly. I once had a 500+ block round.

For the Ironclad I like the strike one that gives bonus damage for every other strike in your deck. I go almost full offense with him and rely on healing while I take as many block out of my deck as I can.

I think I had my first complete runs with both characters on the third tries. I am going through to get all of the unlocks for each of them now. It is a great TV game to play while half watching something. I have been looking for one like that since I got bored of hearthstone.

Bizarre as this sounds my silent didn't touch poison, built block that sustained through to the next round and killed things by discard strikes or free strikes. Sneaky strike is overpowered.

Looking forward to the next iteration!

Sojourn wrote:

Bizarre as this sounds my silent didn't touch poison, built block that sustained through to the next round and killed things by discard strikes or free strikes. Sneaky strike is overpowered.

Looking forward to the next iteration!

I've used your approach as well but not with as much success. The three cards I find to be deadly are:

  • noxious fumes: power that adds 2 poison (3 for upgrade) at the end of each turn
  • Catalyst: skill card that doubles (triples) poison for an enemy
  • Deadly Poison: skill card that gives 5 (7) poison to an enemy

There are a few other cards that also help with poison but these are the core ones. Then I just sit back and use your strategy of rolling block to the next round and hiding behind my wall while my enemies go from 0 to 60+ poison.

Even if you have access to a ton of discard, Sneaky Strike is just OK. It's basically just 8 or 12 damage for 0 mana in the best case scenario. If it was like 20 damage, I would like it a lot more.

Backstab is 11 or 15 damage without any requirements and it's Innate. Yes, it exhausts but that isn't always a bad thing (thins the deck). And Backstab is only OK.

That's the great thing about this game is there's several different styles of decks that work with each character. The key is knowing knowing how pivot if you're not getting the cards or relics you need. Maybe you picked up a poisonous stab early on, but aren't seeing any other good poison cards, but you got shuriken (+1 strength for every 3 attacks made in a turn) and just found dead branch (get a random card in your hand every time you exhaust a card) it might make sense to start making deck around shivs.

Free wrote:

Even if you have access to a ton of discard, Sneaky Strike is just OK. It's basically just 8 or 12 damage for 0 mana in the best case scenario. If it was like 20 damage, I would like it a lot more.

Backstab is 11 or 15 damage without any requirements and it's Innate. Yes, it exhausts but that isn't always a bad thing (thins the deck). And Backstab is only OK.

Burst with Sneaky Strike is great. It play's the card twice so you get double damage and +2 energy. Also if you get the Necronomicon relic (plays your first card that cost 2 or more twice) it's also free energy.

I don't think it works with Burst as Burst is only for Skills. But it does work with Necronomicon. Even still 16-24 damage with a very rare relic still isn't worth it to me. Sneaky Strike is a low tier card for me.

It's better with Snecko, though!

Oops, you're right. I had a successful run the other day with the Necronomicon, Sneaky Strike and a bunch of other synergies and miss-remembered what I was using with burst.

I had a great run last night where I just rolled through everything with the Ironclad. Early on I got the artifact that randomizes cost in hand and just loaded up on high cost attacks like bludgeon and carnage and inferno and blew away most regular monsters on turn 1 or 2.

Is there any known timing on the third character? After putting in 25 hours it is getting a bit stale just grinding through the unlocks.

I think the new character comes out of beta this week. Or you can opt into beta in Steam to play it immediately.

I’ve only played around with it a little bit, but it is a pretty interesting concept, different than what people were expecting, and adds a new mechanic and increasing complexity to the game.

You need to do something with the save files when switching to beta (so I've heard) to maintain your progress. I didn't want to mess with it so I'm willing to wait for it to be promoted out of beta. I'm in agreement with gnomes that it gets stale, although the daily challenge is always fun.

Free wrote:

Even if you have access to a ton of discard, Sneaky Strike is just OK. It's basically just 8 or 12 damage for 0 mana in the best case scenario. If it was like 20 damage, I would like it a lot more.

Backstab is 11 or 15 damage without any requirements and it's Innate. Yes, it exhausts but that isn't always a bad thing (thins the deck). And Backstab is only OK.

I think the theme I was going for in my deck was loads of cards and free actions. The card is average but when its free its free

Early on I would use a card that discarded 1 to draw 4? Then use all the free actions (including sneaky) and then draw more on and on. There is a gold card that gives you mana for discarding it which I didn't think much of when I first saw it, ie really that's gold?. But when you run a discard zero cost deck this basically gives you an extra free turn.

That said you really have to build to what you get early on which is the key mechanic I think.

First of all, I was wrong. Third character is coming in next week's patch.

Second of all, this week's patch adds controller support to any couch potatoes that might like that sort of thing.

Third, I just had a great run, but it got stopped by an event I'd never seen before: The Transient. I think it's newly added. I lost because I didn't fully understand its mechanics at first. Not sure if I like this event seems kind of insane, but if I had a damage heavy deck it might have been better. My deck tonight relied on getting powers up first while hiding behind my block.

Transient spoiler

Spoiler:

This guy starts with 999 health, but dies automatically after 5 turns. It attacks for 50 damage turn one, then 60, 70, 80, etc. HOWEVER, it loses strength equal to the damage it takes that turn, so if you can do enough damage each turn he does little or nothing to you. You just need to be able to hold him off for long enough to survive.

That seems kind of a sucky event for the Silent character that encourages sitting back and building up powers and poison slowly.

For those of you with Android devices, it turns out that Slay the Spire works really well with the Steam Link app. It's a lot of fun to play on the couch while I'm watching TV or something. I didn't even need to hook up my Steam controller.

Finally got around to giving the 3rd character, The Defect, a go. Takes a little getting used to, but I've beat the basic game a few times with him and have unlocked all the unlocks. Currently just gave ascension level 3 a try with The Defect and lost at the final boss because I couldn't get 4 more block that turn (I had the kill all set up for the turn after).

They also continue to impress me with their weekly updates. This week they've added "Endless" mode to the beta build- beat the game and start over on a harder map with your same deck. See how far you can make it. Haven't tried it out yet but sounds intriguing.

Also they added some modifiers you can chose to add to your seed, if you want to try out a particular 'daily challenge' style game:

RAND0M0DS or DAILYM0DS will let you do new daily-style runs.
DRAFT will activate the draft daily mod.
MEGADRAFT will activate Diverse and Draft daily mods. Letting you draft from every characters' cards.
FADEAWAY activates Night Terrors and Terminal. Can you beat the game before running out of HP?
PRAISESNECK0 Will replace your starting relic with Snecko Eye.
Y0URET00SL0W Will activate the Time Dilation daily mod, giving all enemies Slow.
STARTERDECK Will give you Busted Crown and Binary (Meaning enemies drop 0 cards. Can you win with the starter deck??)
INCEPTI0N Start with Unceasing Top _(it's a dream come true!)_
MYTRUEFORM You're a Demon! You're a Wraith! You Echo... echo echo. Start with one of each 'Form' card.
1HITW0NDER Can you beat the game with 1 Max HP?

Such a great game. I hope the developer gets around to making it available on iOS and Android. Seems like a perfect fit.

Wow, the excellent discussion of STS on 3MA (featuring Julian and the Game King) now has me interested in giving this a shot. Except for Dominion which has no theme or consistency so is as exciting as creating spreadsheets in realtime versus other players, I have a mild liking for deck builders but haven't found one that really sticks. Ascension held my attention for awhile, as did Penny Arcade's Gamers vs Evil, but I'm not excited about moving from competent to expert in either. Star Realms felt a little confined for my tastes, and on the other hand Clank! gets players lost in the depth-risk-management race and it feels too contrived for me. I think my ultimate problem with all of these is that I like to build a nice deck and in the games I've tried, just when you have a nice deck built, the game ends before you can really use it. On that basis, maybe STS could be the perfect jam for me for a long haul?

@Kei I played many of the games you mention and I think Ascension is the only one that I've played on and off over the years after an initial try. I think STS is easily worth it's price tag and I'm excited to see where it goes in the future.